Region Gotland: Paper surveys enable us to reach all target groups

How do you reach target groups where computer density is low, or if you wish for the survey to be answered where there are no computers? Region Gotland has used Survey&Report for many years and for them the paper survey function has made it possible to reach target groups who prefer to answer surveys on paper.

“The possibility to create paper surveys is important when you work with target groups where many of the respondents don’t have access to a computer or an e-mail address”, says Ulf Bendelin, coordinator at Region Gotland. “We want to be able to reach all inhabitants – including those without computers or e-mail address – and have, amongst other, sent out a big paper survey to respondents who was 65 years or older. The answering frequency for the survey was 52 % and our perception is that this group is more inclined to answer a paper survey than a web survey.”

With Survey&Report it is possible to create paper surveys for both public surveys and respondent surveys. When the surveys have been answered they are scanned into PDF:s which is then automatically analysed by the program.

“We also use paper surveys when we want to reach visitors at libraries or sport facilities, for example”, says Ulf Bendelin. “The best thing about the paper surveys in Survey&Report is that they are so easy to create – and that you can combine them with web surveys, so that the respondents can choose the alternative which suits them best. We are very pleased and will in the future use the function in even more contexts.”

The paper survey function is part of the plug in SR-Advanced Survey, which you can read more about here.